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I’ve been blogging for nine years now and with all honesty, I am still enjoying it immensely. I can hardly believe that it’s been nine long years since I started blogging, but I still remember vividly how it all started. A good friend of mine sent me a private message on Facebook asking me if I want to blog. I didn’t have the slightest idea back then what it was, but she walked me through it all and supported me all the way. I can’t thank her enough for it.
I’ve shared what I know and learned on blogging with some close friends who showed interest, but it was more of a chat-with-friends kind of talk. I never really thought of writing it down to explain to them. Then I realized, I think there are people out there too who would ask the same questions like they did. So today, I am sharing the simple steps that I’ve learned on how to start a blog. Only three steps, my friends! So simple as that!
1) CHOOSE A DOMAIN NAME
Choosing a domain name can be a little tricky. Here’s a tip. Decide on your niche first. Then work around it and think of a domain name that would fit with your niche.
This blog of ours was meant to focus on travel alone and that’s exactly why we chose, athousandcountryroads.com. But later on, we decided to add more categories because it was difficult to focus on travel alone when we don’t do much traveling. So we added family and food to our categories.
There are a lot of companies where you can buy your domain. They offer different prices as well. Choose the one that fits your budget. But if you choose Bluehost as your hosting provider, you will get a free domain so there’s nothing to worry about paying for anything. Now let’s talk web hosting.
2) GET THE BEST WEB HOSTING
So what is web hosting, you may ask? Web hosting provides you storage space and access for you website. Without it, your website will not be visible to the world wide web.
I’ve heard so much great stuff about the quality of service that Bluehost gives and that’s exactly why I chose them as my hosting provider as soon as we migrated our blog to WordPress.
They offer web hosting for as low as $3.95/month. Can’t beat that!
But they offer different hosting plans and it’s up to you which one you would prefer. The exclusions per plan is shown on the image above to give you an idea on what you’re getting per plan.
3) INSTALLING WORDPRESS
After you’ve purchased your web hosting, it’s now time to install WordPress. There are people who actually hire experts to do this for them. But for me, I decided to do it myself and it wasn’t bad at all as I thought it would be. The thing is, one of the guys at Bluehost helped me and I couldn’t be more thankful to him for that. You can ask them for a little help too if you want or need it.
It doesn’t take long for WordPress to install.
After you’ve installed it, it’s now time to log-in! Get excited!
You’re now logged in and staring at your dashboard. Your self-hosted blog is now ready for you to get started.
Get a theme, or template, that you like. There are a lot of free ones on WordPress alone, but you can also buy one online if you prefer. After that, you can start blogging and share your thoughts and wisdom with the world. 🙂
Get started now by clicking HERE! Happy Blogging!
This is great information for any beginning blogger. This would have been a huge help to me when I first started out.
This is going to help so many beginning bloggers. When I first started, I had to do it all by trial and error, and it was a nightmare. This is wonderful!
This is a wonderful step-by-step! When I first started my blog I wish I knew half the stuff on even this post. I will guide other people that are just starting out over to this post because I think it’s very helpful.
I wish I would have come across a great informational post like this when I was starting out as a blogger. It is so clear and concise with such great recommendations! Congrats on blogging for so long!
All great tips for beginner bloggers! I remember when I first started and it was very hard. Wish I had these tools like these when I first started.
This would be perfect for those who are wanting to start an awesome blog.
These are the easy steps, its the next part that gets hard! lol
I love these tips!!! Picking a good host is so important to do, you can’t blog if your host doesn’t keep your site up.
Thanks..Good tutorial.its really helpfull for beginer like me…
It can be scary to start a blog, but it is so easy! These are great tips for starting a blog.
This is a great resource for people just starting out. I will have to share this with my Sister.
I wish I had this information when I started because it took me along to get my site in good place.
Great tips for the first time blogger. It sure was nerve breaking in the beginning.With helpful tips like this it will sure help out the newbies
I wish I could have started with wordpress when I was just beginning. I have never liked it since I got used to Blogger lol.
I wish I had read this when I was first starting out! I was so lost at first.
This is definitely the easy part. The hard part is being consistent and building it up.
These are some really great tips!!
Great tips. Short, simple and to the point. – Yolonda
Great info, and so simple! I get asked all of the time how to start a blog, this is a good starting point to reference!
Great steps! I love having a blog, and I’d seriously recommend people try it out-it’s such a fun thing!
Great guide for everyone just starting out. You covered all the basics pretty well.
This is really great information. Choosing a domain name can be so hard!
Such great tips! I remember how stressed I was when I started my blog, but man has it worked out better than expected! Love posts like this!
I remember when I started there were not a lot of bloggers around! So glad there are so many resources now!
wow, 9 years is a long time, congrats! Next month will be my 1 year anniversary of blogging! It’s great! I really love blogging too, and even hope to make an income on it : ) this is all very good advice on how to start a blog, nice work!